[Note 16: Cologne Cathedral, the great unfinished marvel by the
Rhine. This great cathedral, generally regarded as the most perfect
Gothic church in the world, was begun in 1248, and was not completed
until 1880, seven years after Stevenson wrote this essay.]
[Note 17: In a golden zone like Apollo's. The Greek God Apollo, later identified with Helios, the Sun-god. The twin towers of Cologne Cathedral are over 500 feet high, so that the experience described here is quite possible.]
[Note 18: The two hall-fires at night. In mediaeval castles, the hall was the general living-room, used regularly for meals, for assemblies, and for all social requirements. The modern word "dining-hall" preserves the old significance of the word. The familiar expression, "bower and hall," is simply, in plain prose, bedroom and sitting-room.]
[Note 19: Association is turned against itself. It is seldom that Stevenson uses an expression that is not instantly transparently clear. Exactly what does he mean by this phrase?]
[Note 20: "As from an enemy." Alluding to the passage Stevenson has quoted above, from Wordsworth's Prelude.]
[Note 21: Our noisy years did indeed seem moments. A favorite reflection of Stevenson's, occurring in nearly all his serious essays.]
[Note 22: Shelley speaks of the sea as "hungering for calm." This passage occurs in the poem Prometheus Unbound, Act III, end of Scene 2.
"Behold the Nereids under the green sea—
Their wavering limbs borne on the wind like stream,
Their white arms lifted o'er their streaming hair,
With garlands pied and starry sea-flower crowns,—
Hastening to grace their mighty Sister's joy.
It is the unpastured sea hungering for calm.">[
[Note 23: Whin-pods. "Whin" is from the Welsh çwyn, meaning "weed." Whin is gorse or furze, and the sound Stevenson alludes to is frequently heard in Scotland.]
[Note 24: "Mon coeur est un luth suspendu." These beautiful words are from the poet Béranger (1780-1857). It is probable that Stevenson found them first not in the original, but in reading the tales of Poe, for the "two lines of French verse" that "haunted" Stevenson are quoted by Poe at the beginning of one of his most famous pieces, The Fall of the House of Usher, where, however, the third, and not the first person is used:—